hello Michael here with success for
others and today I want to talk about
the basic reasons why maintenance
agreements are so critical to your
business and listen to any in-home
service business you know cash flow is
king right I mean at the end of the day
it really comes down to you know cash in
our position of cash to make sure that
the company is doing everything that
needs to do and providing for its
employees as well as providing for its
customers and maintenance agreements
have the biggest impact on a company's
cash position then quite frankly
anything else that we can offer and yet
as I travel around I noticed so many
service companies that do not offer or
do not believe in maintenance agreement
cut and maintenance agreement sales and
it just kind of blows my mind and some
of the excuses I've heard are well
they're just a loss leader and you know
there's no money to be made on
maintenance agreements and we don't have
the time in the fall and the spring to
get to all of these hundreds if not
thousands of customers we just don't
have that number of employees to support
that and you know at the end of the day
all of which of those are just excuses
because when it's time when it really
comes down to time to sell your business
or an exit strategy or anything else
you're really evaluating what your
business is worth maintenance agreement
contracts are probably one of the
biggest things that an investor or a
potential buyer is even going to look at
and really going to probably ask in the
first I don't know four sentences of
questions that they ask the business
owner and the reason for that is let's
face it we can get the van's we can hire
employees the real thing that we're
buying when we purchase an HVAC company
or we'll evaluate an HVAC company is the
worth of the customer base and if you
don't have customers on a maintenance
agreement contract weather
annually or biannually and don't have
that customer locked up well at the end
of the day you just have a direct mail
list you just have a phone list you
really don't have a loyal customer base
and those customers can go anywhere and
it's in their fate not in yours so you
know the biggest reason why maintenance
agreements are critical to your business
is it creates customer loyalty and
today's business and in the environment
of today's business customer
satisfaction is pretty much deemed
useless I mean let's face it if you are
not making your customers happy or if
your employees are not out at a
customer's home making them happy then
they're not going to call you again and
you're gonna lose them as a customer so
customer satisfaction although important
not critical it's a minimum expectation
in today's business world the real goal
is customer loyalty how do you keep the
customers in your database coming back
to you year after year after year so
that you can service not only their
immediate needs but also their future
needs as well and that's what leads to
consistent residual income and so here
here's something to think about
something to look at for all of the
naysayers or for all the people out
there that don't believe that
maintenance agreements are the right
thing for them for their company or
heaven forbid for their customers first
of all your customers benefit from a
maintenance agreement because for a
number of reasons but the biggest being
to ensure their health and safety right
to make sure that this system is is
providing the healthiest safety safety
environments for them in their family
because we're dealing with a lot of
uncontrollable things here and a lot of
dangerous components so you know that is
probably the biggest thing is just a
health and safety factor but then on
addition to that let's just look at you
know indoor air quality and comfort and
utility costs and all the other reasons
why people invest in HVAC services
products and solutions so maintenance
agreements
our one men are required by every
manufacturer to uphold their warranty so
that's important in the customer too
important to ensure that they're not
overpaying the utility company month in
and month out year in and year out three
ensures that the customers is has a safe
operating system for them and their
family of their home and number four
really designed to you know reduce noise
and just give the customer a the best
level of comfort they can in their home
and let's face it you know people will
soon vest money in your organization or
in your services if you can increase
their comfort moreso than they'll invest
if you can reduce your utility cost so
that's a little factoid for you that's
that's that's kind of a strong and
something that you should really pay
attention on when assessing a customer's
needs so let's break it down to again I
don't know the size of every company
that's watching this right now so this
is just an introduction video this is a
very elementary video we'll continue to
build upon this foundation in the future
but today let's just look at a small
small organization and we'll just look
at one technician now if you have more
than one technician that's fine just
multiply these numbers by the number of
technicians you have so one technician
let's just say runs three calls a day on
average throughout the year so day in
day out year in year out
they're running an average of three
calls a day times five days a week that
would be Monday through Friday that's
gonna mean that that service technician
or one service technician can be in
fifteen different homes every single
week and that is a very low number I
mean I know a lot of you watching this
video are like wow three calls a day I
wish right I mean this is extremely
conservative so if you take that 15
calls a week and you multiply that by 50
weeks that's gonna give you 750
opportunities in a year per technician
so that's per tack so if you have two
technicians then obviously you'd be in
1500 homes minimum a year now let's just
look at mean sales is nothing more than
a numbers game right I mean it's just a
matter of of numbers so if you were to
sign up five out of ten people who
didn't currently have a maintenance
program onto a maintenance program that
your company offered and that would
allow you access to their home and to
that customers equipment twice a year
and that would be a 50% closing or
acquisition rate right that's fifty
percent closer and five out of ten so
that would be three hundred and seventy
five maintenance agreements per
technician per year at a fifty percent
closing ratio now if you sell a
maintenance agreement for somewhere
around I don't know what I'm just using
math here just to use it as an example
whatever your price is your price is
some people charge as little as $99 a
year and other people charge as much as
$400 a year so let's just find something
in the middle and say it's a hundred and
ninety five dollars a year times those
three hundred and seventy five
opportunities that you converted that
would actually translate into revenue or
into hard cash for your company of
seventy three thousand one hundred and
twenty five dollars of cash per year
just from one technician so again if you
have three technicians five technicians
twenty technicians just multiply that
number by however many technicians you
have and it will give you the
opportunity that maintenance agreements
can bring to your business from a
revenue standpoint now revenue cash is
king right I mean at the end of the day
an extra seventy three thousand dollars
a year on a small organization is gonna
have a huge impact on how that company
operates because let's face it we all
have peaks and valleys of business you
have the hot season the cold season you
know there's there's a slow seasons in
between where mother nature may not
bless us with the phone ringing off the
hook and what are you doing in that time
well you can be running maintenance
agreements now here's the misconception
of maintenance agreements you're not
just going to the house to blow off and
equipment that is just you know that's
what most people think well I'm gonna go
and test the equipment write it up and
leave and then hopefully you know you
know we'll see whatever we can see the
whole point of getting into a house
twice a year the same house again and
again again first and foremost is to
build that relationship with that
customer to build that loyalty and that
top-of-mind awareness that we all you
know spend tens if not hundreds of
thousands of dollars a year on it all
organizations already so that is built
in with maintenance agreements you're
there you're top of mind awareness
people think about you when it happens
and you've really gotten that loyalty
but on the other side of that as well is
when you go into a maintenance eighty
percent of your focus should be on
communicating with the customer and
identifying what is it that their goals
are what are their needs what are their
wants one of the desires and how can you
help or how can certain products that
you have in your arsenal or in your tool
bag or in your service van help them
accomplish those goals and so the real
reason why we go on maintenance
agreements is not only to ensure the
safety and make sure the existing
equipment is operating within
manufacturer specifications but more
importantly to identify additional
opportunities that we can help this
customer achieve additional goals
because let's face it most customers
don't know that the comfort problems
that they've experienced in their house
for the last five years or ten years or
however long they've been in the house
can be solved and today's technician is
so highly trained and so highly skilled
that they have the air flow knowledge
the diagnostic knowledge to really have
a positive impact on those comfort
challenges throughout the house they
also have the knowledge of the different
accessories and different things out
there to help protect that customers
equipment as well as their their family
and their home and we'll just kneel
float switches are a great example of
that surge protectors you know
humidifiers dehumidifiers air
purification systems all of these things
that our customers can be benefiting
from this is the opportunity where we
can identify those needs educate them on
different options available to them
and then ask them if they'd like to you
know explore one of those options
further if they'd like to have that
upgrade or that accessory added on to
their house and the key is is how we
translate and how we educate the
customer and how we create that emotion
when we're in the home and that's
something that we would be happy to help
you with as well but today's message
let's stay focused here is strictly on
the opportunity maintenance agreements
bring to you your employees and your
company and most importantly arguably
most importantly the benefits it brings
to your customers so if you are not
offering made instruments right now to
100% of the clients that you're seeing
on a day-to-day week-to-week basis then
I strongly encourage you to look into
maintenance agreements give us a call
reach out let's have a conversation over
the phone about this because there's a
lot of opportunity I feel that's being
missed and a lot of benefits to your
company as well as your customer
database that we're just walking past
right now so that's really it for
today's message if you need any help you
need any assistance whatsoever with
creative made us agreement program or
just refining the one that you have
please feel free to reach out to us you
can reach us at WWDC so the number for
others dot-com you can email any one of
us at any time of any questions you have
or just give us a phone call we would be
happy to help if you haven't connected
with us on facebook and linkedin yet I
encourage you to do so again my name is
michael go Durr with success for others
and we are happy to help whenever needed
thank you so much